Doctor Who Would Never Fit In This!

Earlier this evening (i.e., immediately after work) Judith and I went to The Developing City exhibition at the new Walbrook Building, opposite Cannon Street Station (a new building which, according to theThe Financial Times, is now worth less than the debt run up to build it and is still unoccupied). The exhibition, featuring plans and images of the City of London from Roman times to the present, has obviously been compiled with assistance from the collections of the Museum of London but is primarily concerned with the present and the future of the City -- it has many conceptual drawings, architects' models, and speculations (some of them very interesting) of what the City may look like in 2050. (If we live that long, we'll be 97 years old. I hope I make it.) You can read more about the exhibition, and see some photographs of it on the blog that tipped me off to its existence.

After our time was up, and the exhibition closed for the day, we walked to Liverpool Street Station for a train back to Seven Sisters. And on the way, passing St Stephen's, Walbrook* a Wren church now surrounded on three sides by tall office buildings (and with an exquisite mid-Georgian vicarage surviving alongside, just as hemmed in), we came across this Corporation of London police phone box. When taking its picture, I added Judith for scale. If the box could ever have travelled through time and space, it would never have done so with any human passengers.



* Note that this link to the church's website will automatically play a rather irritating bit of Gregorian plainchant unless you click the "Music Off" button beneath the logo near the top of the page. Unless you do, you won't be able to hear the vicar talking about the history of the church on the optional embedded video (it has its longeurs, but has much interesting information to impart).